Google Slides continues to be my “go to” app when designing assignments for my students. I currently have a group of students who are reading The Tale of Despereaux in a book club. As we read the book, I think about how to turn traditional book club response sheets or forms into a Google Slide. Here are just a few of the ways I’ve incorporated Google Slides into our book club.
Comparing and Contrasting
Comparing and contrasting is definitely high on the Bloom’s Taxonomy scale. It is under analyzing. So rather than complete a Venn Diagram or some other graphic organizer to compare and contrast, it is very simple to create a template in Google Slides and have the students fill in text boxes for their responses. The slides can be easily shared and projected for the entire class to see. In The Tale of Despereaux, we compared the theme of Light and Dark. Students also compared and contrasted the lives of Miggery Sow and Princess Pea.
Analyzing Characters
There are so many wonderful characters in The Tale of Despereaux, that many activities can be centered around character analysis. One way I did this in Google Slides, was to create a template for a socio-gram, which is a chart that analyzes character relationships. Using the line tool in Google Slides, students drew lines to show strong relationships, weak relationships, special relationships, or conflict. They also had to use at least three words to describe the character. Another way to get into a character and feel sympathy for a character is to write a Dear Abby type letter. My students wrote a Dear Abby letter to Roscuro to mend his broken heart.
Chapter Response
Sometimes, a specific chapter requires a more detailed analysis or a personal response. In the chapters that introduced the character of Miggery Sow in The Tale of Despereaux, I had the students complete a double-entry journal on a Google Slides template. I chose specific quotes from the chapters that showed what a miserable life Miggery Sow had lived. I wanted to see what the students felt and thought when they read the quotes. In another chapter, Miggery Sow ends up in the castle, so I created a template in Google Slides that is a flow chart. The students will map out how Miggery Sow ended up in the castle — which indirectly leads to another theme of the book: hope!
I hope that this post has inspired you to look at Google Slides in a new way. If you need more ideas, resources and tips for using Google in the Classroom, visit and follow my Pinterest board on Google in the Classroom!
